


demons

by euriele



Category: RWBY
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 14:00:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2470781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euriele/pseuds/euriele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone has their demons, Ozpin. Yours just happen to be a lot bigger.</p>
            </blockquote>





	demons

Everyone has their demons, Ozpin. Yours just happen to be a lot bigger.

You were a combatant in the Faunus Revolution, fighting to keep the citizens safe from the extremists who tried to attack them. You’re a Hunter, so you’re on the front-lines. You took down Faunus after Faunus, cut them down as they came running at you with battle cries on their lips and thoughts of revolution in their mind. You killed them in their dozens, and didn’t think nothing of it until the years after, when you’d wake up in a cold sweat.

You have blood on your hands, Ozpin. The blood of people who wanted nothing more than to be treated as people rather than animals. And the blood of innocents.

You’re stationed in the deserts of Vacuo when you make your biggest mistake. It’s the second year of the war, and you haven’t been home in a year.

You miss Vale. Vacuo’s a harsh place. Nothing but vast expanses of desert or forest with villages being few and far between. You miss the urban sprawl of Vale, the constant sounds of traffic and chatter. You miss the safety of Vale - the tall walls that would surround a city and guarantee you at least some safety from the Grimm at night. It certainly helped you to sleep better.

You’re in the desert with your regiment, on the march to the closest city. It’s a long, arduous march that’s made all the more slower by the sand. The sun beats down on you all day before it sets and the air chills. The cold nights call for you to wrap up warm in blankets and cloaks, but you’re sweating by the time the sun comes up. It’s an endless cycle. You have dirt and sand in the creases of your skin and your hair is matted with sweat.

The news comes in one day that there’s a Faunus camp nearby.

It’s a military camp.

Your orders are to take it out.

Here’s the thing, Ozpin: you’re the perfect soldier. You get your orders; you carry them out to the best of your ability. You never question the ones in power. That’s why you went on for so long without feeling remorse for all those lives you took, because you reasoned that you were just a soldier, following orders like soldiers do.

It takes you a long time to realise it doesn’t work like that.

You’re part of the assault on the Faunus camp. The camp was built up around an oasis in the desert. Rows and rows of tents filled with soldiers, most of them fast asleep when your regiment begins their assault.

The first squad moves forwards and takes out the guards patrolling the outside of the camp. One of them gives a shout, but there’s an arrow in his throat, silencing him barely seconds later. You watch the figures in black fall one by one, and watch as the squad moves into the camp.

The second squad flanks left, whilst your squad moves right. Your orders are to set the tents on fire, drive the Faunus out and take them down before they run off.

You never question your orders.

You think you’re seeing things at first, that it’s just heatstroke getting to you. But you blink twice and carry on staring, because you realise you’re not seeing things and there’s an actual child Faunus, with messy blonde hair and a matching monkey’s appendage sticking out of his lower back, crawling out of one of the burning tents.

You’re shell shocked, staring at this child. He doesn’t see you. He just runs, deeper into the maze of tents. Your regiment surges forward into the camp, following the direction the wind is blowing the flames. You can hear screaming from Faunus who are most certainly not adults, can see women who are not soldiers tugging on the arms of children, pulling them away from the fires and the advancing soldiers.

You realise you’ve made a mistake.

"Stop," you try to say, but it comes out as a croak as your squad moves on around you. "Stop!  _STOP!_ ”

They don’t hear you. There’s gunshots, terrible screams. A Faunus comes tumbling out of a tent, their shirt and their tail burning. There’s a child curled into a ball in the sand, screaming into their knees as soldiers run around them.

Try to catch the arms of passing soldiers. Try to tell them to stop, that it isn’t a military camp. No one listens. The few Faunus soldiers that are in the camp try to stop any humans from following the fleeing Faunus, but they end up being taken down.

By the time it actually registers with the humans, the orange sand is dyed red with blood and the night sky is orange with flames.

It’s a while later before your superiors tell you the information was wrong, that they mistook a refugee camp guarded by soldiers for a military camp.

A mistake, you think bitterly.

A mistake that cost the lives of 246 Faunus, you find out.

 

—

 

"I’ve made more mistakes than any man, women or child on this planet," you say.

And you’re sure it’s not an understatement. 


End file.
